


Work Song

by doylesmom



Series: Claudeleth Week 2020 [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, Claudeleth Week (Fire Emblem), Claudeleth week 2020, F/M, Grinding, Modern AU, Pining, tattoo artist/florist au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:22:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25450831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doylesmom/pseuds/doylesmom
Summary: Claude was not jealous. Really, he wasn’t.For Claudeleth week 2020 day 4 (prompt: pining)
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Series: Claudeleth Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838485
Comments: 16
Kudos: 121
Collections: Claudeleth Week 2020





	Work Song

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, I really like this one. I was originally going to make this a smut fic, but it didn't feel right. So enjoy some general spiciness and pining Claude instead.

Claude was not jealous. Really, he wasn’t. He simply thought that perhaps the client before him was taking just a little too long to finish putting his shirt back on.

As though she was reading his mind- and he still had yet to be convinced that she couldn’t- Hilda shot him a wry look from across the waiting area, pausing in her perusal of one of Byleth’s design books.

“If you’re going to be like that, go watch the store.” He groused at her, trying not to feel too irritated at her obvious amusement. 

“I see how it is.” Hilda cooed, closing the book and standing. She winked lasciviously at him. “You want to be alone with The Professor for your last appointment. Well, don’t let me interrupt you, lover boy.”

She was out the door before Claude could inform her that that wasn’t what he meant at all, and also to please actually work the store and not just sit behind the counter and tweet until closing. Ah well, it was only half an hour. She couldn’t run him out of business in that amount of time. Hopefully.

“I’m almost done back here, Claude.” Byleth called from the back, peeking her head out from behind the partition to smile softly at him in a way that always made his cheeks burn. “Give me another ten to finish cleaning and I’ll be ready for you.”

The man she had been tattooing- some Southern California picture perfect blonde surfer with stupidly pretty eyes- came out a few moments later, the bandages covering his new tattoo peeking out from under his shirt. Claude wondered what he had gotten. Probably nothing as cool or meaningful as his own tattoo, and no, internal voice that sounded eerily like Hilda, that was  _ not _ jealousy speaking.

The door chimed as it closed behind the man, and Claude and Byleth were left alone in the shop.

“Claude, do you mind locking up?” Byleth called from the supply closet. Claude rose from his seat to grab the keys to the store from where she tended to store them- bottom left drawer by the check in desk that never really got used. How odd, and yet how right, to be so familiar with her, with the shop, after what was honestly not a lot of time. They had only met, what, four months ago? And yet the brightly lit shop and its owner were familiar now. Both had become a sanctuary of sorts for him, and the past eight weeks he had spent cooped up in the back of the shop with Byleth as she worked her magic on his skin had felt… unreal. The bright lights and white painted walls and blaring rock music and the smell of incense- all homey, and yet they remained the backdrop to the siren’s call that was Byleth Eisner, alias The Professor, this highest rated, most talented tattoo artist in all of the city of Fodlan. Probably in all of California. Her work was worn by celebrities, influencers, even a wayward Swedish princess- though that was just a rumor, and Byleth was never one to discuss her customers. Claude could believe it though. Her delicate line work and bold coloring style had made her an internet darling, with a following of nearly three million to back up her claims.

His next door neighbor was something else.

Well, next door neighbor to his own store- a floral boutique that had been in his family for three generations now. Claude wasn’t a creep or anything, he didn’t know where she actually lived, but their stores- Almyran Blooms and Demon Ink Tattoos- shared a wall, a dumpster, and sometimes their mail. Their mail carrier was notoriously lazy, and it only took a week for the first mix up to occur. He hadn’t known what to expect that first encounter with her. Hadn’t known what kind of person owned Demon Ink Tattoos. Hadn’t expected a brightly lit, clean shop. Hadn’t expected the mint haired beauty with her startlingly blue eyes and piercings and innumerable tattoos.

Hadn’t expected to find himself coming back, even without the mail mix ups. Hadn’t expected her to get under his skin so quick, over late night take out and morning coffee, slowly learning to read her emotions, which spoke so clearly in her eyes even when they didn’t show on her face. Hadn’t expected such a rapid friendship, one that felt like they had known each other for years rather than months. 

Hadn’t expected to finally succumb to his own want for a tattoo. Hadn’t expected her to offer to design a beautiful full back piece for him, with all of his favorite flowers.

Hadn’t expected to fall in love with her.

“Alright, Claude, I’m ready for you.” Her voice floated above the music. “Come on back.”

_ Okay, Claude, pack the puppy eyes away. You’re just here to have your tattoo checked for the last time. _

The last time.

He tried not to let the thought hurt. Tried being the operative word. It was quite ridiculous, really but he  _ had _ spent the past eight weekends holed up in the shop with her, just the two of them after their stores had officially closed for the day. The sun would shine copper and gold through the windows as Byleth worked and Claude watched, conversation flowing easily between them as he tried not to stare openly at her look of concentration in the nearby mirror. Her brows would furrow and her tongue would stick out and gods above it took everything in him in those moments to not shoo her calloused hands from his bare skin and reach around to pull her into a kiss.

_ Ha! As if that would end well. _

Claude put the keys back in the drawer and began to untuck and unbutton his shirt. He made his way into the back of the shop, taking a seat on the tattoo chair tucked into the back corner, just behind a row of slightly over-watered dracaenas.

“Now, friend,” he teased as he finished pulling his shirt all the way off, tossing it to the ground. “What did I tell you about sticking to the watering schedule I made for you?”

Strangely, Byleth did not respond. Claude looked into the mirror that sat along the back wall and saw that though she was still in the room, her gaze was distant, distracted, almost flushed looking. He realized that her gaze was aimed at him- through him, more likely- and tried not to shiver.

“You okay back there?” He asked hesitantly. “I can come back tomorrow if you’re not feeling well.”

“No, no, I’m fine!” She insisted, waving her moment off almost frantically. “Let me take a look at your back, make sure nothing else needs to be touched up.”

Byleth sat on her chair and wheeled towards him, humming absentmindedly as she examined the plains of his back under the lights, the heat of her body almost electric in its nearness. Her hands pressed suddenly against his shoulders, the coolness of them startling, making him jump with a sharp gasp.

“Oh, sorry.” She said quickly, pulling her hands back.

“No, you’re fine!” He rushed to assure her, his voice raspy as he turned in the chair to face her. The glint of her septum ring caught in the light, drawing his gaze to her red painted lips. “You can touch me as much as you like.”

A beat.

Two.

_ Realization. _

“I, well, that is-”

Oh gods above strike him down now, had he really said that out loud? 

“Ah, well, that’s good.” Byleth interrupted, her cheeks turning a very interesting shade of pink. “Because I like touching you.”

Wh-

Huh?

Had he heard that right? Was he dreaming? He didn’t think he was dreaming but suddenly everything felt very unreal. Was it just him or had the room temperature suddenly jumped ten degrees?

“Yes, my, uh, art looks good on you.” She continued, suddenly very interested in the grout on the tiled floor. “You, uh, have a nice back and the tattoo came out really well and your skin is very soft and I think that this is probably my best piece to date and I’m going to miss seeing it every weekend.”

_ Okay Claude, process… process… process… _

“Just the tattoo?” He found himself saying instead.

_ Abort mission! Not enough processing! _ _   
_ __   
“What?” Byleth’s voice was suddenly, adorably, very squeaky.

Claude turned fully in the chair, very aware that he was still shirtless but… But…

He was not a fool, despite what many thought of him. He could put on an air headed face with the best of them, switch between social masks like none other, but Claude had always prided himself on his ability to read others, to read the room, to analyze the situation at hand and bring his goals to fruition.

His therapist said that it was in part due to his anxiety, but Claude liked to think it was mostly his nature to be intuitive.

And something,  _ something _ \- intuition, his guts, a message from above- was telling him that Byleth Eisner, tattoo artist extraordinaire, work neighbor, friend, probably the love of his life, was flirting with him in her own awkward way. Hope swelled in his chest, rushing through his veins and pounding through his hands, his feet, his chest like an avalanche of adrenaline and pure unfiltered joy. He felt the thing with wings in his chest and he reached out and grabbed it and held it close as he leapt.

“I said,” He repeated, his voice pitching low and deep, “Just the tattoo? Because I, for one, will miss seeing  _ you _ every weekend.”

Silence rang through the room like a gong and as each second dragged on longer than the last Claude felt himself, his heart, his thing with feathers, begin to sink.

Oh gods he fucked up  _ big time _ .

“Byleth, I-” He began to apologize, to attempt to salvage what was left of their friendship, to make a joke or excuse or  _ something _ about why he had said that if only to still be able to see her, hear her laugh, be in her life for even just a little longer when suddenly his words were cut off as Byleth- beautiful, brave Byleth- pressed her lips against his own.

Claude had never understood the hype around first kisses. He had kissed people in the past- ex boyfriends and girlfriends and the like but they had all just seemed so… underwhelming. Just a press of skin to skin, sometimes chaste, sometimes sloppy but never anything extraordinary. Never anything magical.

Kissing Byleth made him understand. Her lips were soft and warm and insistent against him, the smell of incense and shampoo and mint chapstick flooding his nostrils, rushing to his head in a heady wave as he pressed against her, capturing her lips over and over and over until he felt drunk with it. She groaned against his mouth and her fingers wove into his hair and  _ tugged _ and then suddenly Claude was the one groaning. He pulled her closer, needing to feel every inch of her against his fevered skin, each press sending shocks through his body, pooling heat into his groin as he sat on the tattoo chair and Byleth climbed into his lap eagerly, excitedly. Her fingers began to scrape along his neck as he nibbled on her lower lip and  _ gods she was grinding on him and he was definitely hard and _ -

_ BANG BANG BANG! _

“Hey! I’m leaving for the day!” Hilda’s muffled voice came through the locked door. “Also, I can definitely see you getting nasty in there!”

Byleth and Claude sprang apart, red faced and wide eyed.

“Bye, lovebirds!” Hilda yelled, waving cheekily as she left, walking to her car.

“So…” Byleth began, clearing her throat awkwardly as she delicately removed herself from his lap and very evident boner. “Your tattoo is fully healed. Also you uh, have lipstick on your face.”

“I’m in love with you.” Claude blurted out. Byleth’s big eyes grew even wider, shock evident on her face as an amazed laugh escaped her own lipstick smudged mouth.

“Well that’s good. I’m in love with you too. I live above the studio, if you uh…”

“Yes,” Claude agreed, hopping off the chair to grab his shirt. “I do.”

Byleth smiled at him, a new kind of smile that made his brain go fuzzy and warm. 

“Perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/tzubakis/)


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